


Sometimes Imperfection

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-21
Updated: 2009-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There has always been an understanding between the four of them, the top children in their years at Wammy's, when it comes to Matt and Linda, and Mello and Near. And perhaps that's what frustrates Matt the most, regarding Mello... [Future!AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes Imperfection

**Author's Note:**

> All of the places in this story are real, fom the [Moulin de la Galette](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_de_la_Galette) to the [Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church).
> 
> Thanks go to my lovely Tierfal, who made me sit down to write this! And best wishes go to Cate, for whom it's a birthday present. ♥

The text arrives when he's leaning against the wall outside a pub in Glasgow, mingled smoke and cold almost obscuring the screen of his phone. The message is only brief, of course, because Mello has always been sharp in the written form – and often in the spoken – just three words: _You, me, Berlin_. They're not the three words Matt had hoped they might be, despite his better judgement _(I love you)_, nor the three words he rather thinks they ought to be, after the stunt Mello had pulled in Oslo _(please forgive me)_. That stunt is very the reason why Matt is drinking beer in Britain again. Matt has always lived for the moment but, really, the sight of Mello's face had simply become a bit too much for him, and the knowledge that Mello just couldn't stay fucking faithful for more than a few months had been the last straw. Matt had caught the next plane out, resting his backpack in Winchester where L, who was home courtesy of the sixth sense he'd always had for when one of the four of them was in trouble, sat licking cream from teaspoons and insinuating, without ever actually bringing the subject up, that perhaps Mello was only unfaithful because Mello was unsettled by the concept that, deep down, Matt was all he really needed.

A concept that Matt had already been familiar with, in theory, of course, because it wasn't as though he hadn't sat through the same million hours of head-shrinking lessons that L himself had. But a concept which, also, in reality, offered meagre consolation when he turned up at home to discover Mello with some other guy's dick half way down his throat.

L had left for China on Tuesday morning, and Matt had headed north because... well, because north had seemed as good as any other direction, and he hadn't run out of money yet.

And then, the text.

_You, me, Berlin._

Matt glares at it for a good sixty-three seconds. He's just deleted it when a second text arrives, this time ostensibly from some different number, which isn't so easily connected to Mello – M guards his identity – apart from the obvious deduction of basic logic. That, and the contents of the message itself, seeing as it's the address of a hotel, and it's signed with an _M_ at the end. Matt stares at it for long enough to file the address away in his memory, amongst all the other locations he's ever needed to remember in his life, and then deletes it too.

Not that he's planning on going, like some dog whose master has tossed him a stick. No, he's sick of it, sick of the lot of it. He's sick of Mello bitching when things don't go his way, sick of Mello hogging the bathroom, sick of Mello's inability to pick a job for any reason other than to keep up with N's subtle rise in fame, sick of Mello's pretty arse—

Well, no. Maybe not sick of that. Not sick of the blue of his eyes, either, nor of the touch of his hands, nor of the way that wisps of his hair always catch at Matt's face when they're kissing and therein, perhaps, lies the real issue.

To be completely honest, Matt isn't exactly surprised when he finds himself on a cheap flight to Paris, but he likes to tell himself that he is.

**

Matt travels via Paris because he's in denial that he's going to Berlin at all. That, and because he wants to pick up his _Personalausweis_ from Linda, who happens to have more than a few of his false IDs stored away in a shoebox at the back of her safe.

Linda meets him at a small cafe in Montmartre. She assesses him in silence, then sits herself down and orders _tartines_ and black coffee. She speaks with a Swiss accent here, both in French and in English, Matt notes, and she smiles knowingly as he relaxes himself back into the old familiar game of playing with the assumed identities of one's friends. The waitress knows her, he can tell; there's extra cream in her coffee, and the hands of the two women brush at the edge of the saucer. Linda just _hmms_ at him when he raises his eyebrows.

They walk in silence to her apartment, coffee warm in Matt's stomach, and Linda's smile warm at his side. She loves it here, she tells him, taking his hand in hers and leading him on a detour past the old Moulin de la Galette, then back up winding, slightly damp streets where vines tumble over the edges of walls. Linda's home rests, concertinaed, between two others, a small brass plate on the door offering persuasive etymological evidence to back up the accent she speaks with. Matt's never been here before, but the scent of oil paint and turps makes his nose itch the same way it always does; there's cigar smoke beneath it, too, and waxy lipstick, and extremely black coffee. Linda sheds her coat and hat by the door. She brushes at her hair with her fingertips, her neck so white that it's shadowed with blues like buttermilk as she bares it before him, dragging her hair up and pinning it high. She takes his coat from him and hangs it beside her own. Her fingers are nimble on his collar and she strokes a thumb along his jaw, and tells him he should smile more.

He does, but only because she's the one asking.

Linda is Matt's Near. Without the frenzied push to compete. That's what she always jokes, whenever Matt reappears in her town, in her life. There has always been an understanding between the four of them, the top children in their years at Wammy's, when it comes to Matt and Linda, and Mello and Near. And perhaps that's what frustrates Matt the most, regarding Mello, because it isn't as though he would even care if the blond caught a plane for a dirty weekend with the white-haired genius, if that were what he wanted. But no. Mello doesn't. Mello wrangles with Near via satellite and telephone, and make-believes that he isn't interested; after all these years, Near still rubs him wrong more often than he rubs him right. Sometimes Matt thinks that the younger man is yet another reason why Mello does the stupid things he does. 

Linda shrugs when Matt asks whether he should take his boots off or not. She slips free of her own shoes, though, and walks stocking-footed down the narrow hall. She works on a painting that she's finishing for a deadline. She points at Matt with the end of her brush to punctuate her thoughts, flecking her face with tiny streaks of blue and viridian. She talks about work, mainly commissions for the bored and the influential. She talks about the politicians and intelligentsia who come to her, and about what a delight it always is when she can pass something of use on to a certain cake-eating mentor. Linda is more or less a settled agent, always on the job, but never officially on any at all. The ones she takes to bed like to talk about things they would never discuss with a young English detective, but which they have no problem musing over with a young Swiss painter. Linda pours Matt white wine and cooks him pasta for lunch. She regales him with how obnoxious some of her lovers can be, and what a good lay others are, and about how she enjoys them all but only ever falls for the women. She says it with her eyebrows raised and the wooden spoon tapping at the edge of the stove. Matt smiles for her, and mentions the waitress with the pale brown hair, and Linda forgets to stir the sauce as she talks.

In the afternoon, when the sunlight is falling head over heels into her tiny bedroom, she takes him upstairs. The room is a whirl of books and scarves and art supplies, and a queen-sized bed taking up almost the entire floor space. She puts his German documents on a chair, calls him _Herr Jeevas_ in a teasing voice, and takes off her dress in the sunlight, all pale warmth over nigh translucent skin. Matt wonders what it would be like, as his hands palm at her hips and his tongue drawls silvery circles around her aureole, to fall in love with her. He's sure she would let him, would even give up her pretty French waitress for him, he thinks, as she undresses him slowly, her lips making marks on his collarbones and her hands wandering wherever she fancies. He thinks it would be nice. He can see it in his head, like a daydream, her and him and Paris, her oils and his work. Then she smiles up at him and asks, "Penny for your thoughts?" and he laughs, and lets it go, and gives her his full attention here, now. He likes the way his hands make her shiver slowly; he likes the easy warmth of her as she wraps herself around him and welcomes him within.

Afterwards, she shares his cigarette, tinting it faintly with the taste of coffee and Linda and blueberry lip gloss. One of her hands toys at his hipbone and her other hand gestures towards the ceiling with the cigarette, as though the point she wants to make is hanging up there with the glass-covered light bulb. She says, "He's really got you hooked, hasn't he?"

Matt doesn't have to ask who she means. He doesn't want to answer, either, so he shifts against the sheets and just takes the cigarette when she passes it back to him.

"You know he loves you more than anything else, in his own Mello kind of way," she says quietly. "He'd be a fool not to, and Mello is many things, but a fool... no. And sometimes, Matt, sometimes imperfection is better than nothing at all."

For a second, for just the flimsiest, laciest second, Matt revisits that vision of himself and Linda, and he considers how much simpler it would be that way, so much simpler, especially when she's looking at him like that, especially when her hands are on him, writing out words she's never said; words she's never going to say.

Then she rises onto one of her elbows, and smiles.

Matt smiles in return, and gets up to search for his jeans.

**

Mello is waiting for him at the Breitscheidplatz. He's sucking on _praline,_ and wearing the calm smile that is Mello's version of on-edge.

"Hey," says Matt, because he knows he has to make the first move; they've played this game since they were children.

"Hey," says Mello, and puts the bag of chocolates away in one of his pockets.

Matt hates the bastard and at the same time he can't help but grin. He winds a fistful of Mello's hair between his fingers and kisses him, indifferent to the tourists watching, indifferent to the black-clad kids lining the low wall that sweeps away towards the church behind them. He hates the bastard, and he loves him too, and sometimes the words are synonymous.

"You're hopeless," he says.

"Not as hopeless as you, obviously," retorts Mello, his eyes bright, wrinkling his nose slightly at the scent of Linda's perfume on Matt's clothes. "I'm sorry, you know," he adds, almost as an afterthought, then slips his hand slyly into Matt's back pocket and manoeuvres him towards the church.

Matt already knows how lovely Mello looks within its walls, the blue glass windows casting light across his blondness – this church has always suited Mello, a broken thing made beautiful. Matt lets himself be led, lets the world settle back into place around him, and lets himself forget about happy-endings in Paris. Everything is right the way that it is, at least until next time.

Matt has always lived for the moment.


End file.
